Category: Life of a Planner

We love to see your inspiring work and learn about our awesome users, so we wanted to issue an official call for submissions. In case you haven’t seen, we love to feature our users. You’d be in the excellent company of planners like Tickled Events, Bridal Bliss, and STX Weddings.

photo credit: ykvision

Check out our Submissions page to see different ways you can be featured. Have wisdom to share? An office space to show off? A wedding, or even just one breathtaking image you can’t keep to yourself?

Tickled Events is a boutique event management company located in the Bay Area. Led by powerhouse of warmth Adrienne Lee, the company’s vibe is as fun and delightful as its name suggests! Clients and colleagues alike are absolutely smitten with Tickled and its work, and so are we. With weddings that look like this, can you blame us?

More from Tickled:

“We here at Tickled Events LOVE LOVE everything about weddings from the style of the bridesmaids’ dresses, to the design of the centerpieces, to the detail of the favors. Our goal is to make the planning process as easy, fun and simple for a couple as possible so that on their wedding day, all they have to do is kick back, relax, and dance the night away without any worries.”

“After 8 years of planning weddings, we’ve spent countless hours on the day-of timeline with coordinating, revisions, and challenges. Timeline Genius is the one application that I’ve been waiting for all these years. TG has thought of everything needed in a timeline, helps to anticipate the needs of a wedding day, and is so fast and easy to learn and read. I especially love the time shift; instead of multiple changes on an excel spreadsheet, a few clicks shifts my entire timeline by however much time I want. The feature of creating individual timelines for each vendor is also ingenious. TG has saved me so much time and really is effortless to use. I’ve left my excel spreadsheet timelines and haven’t looked back!”

Thank you Tickled Events for trusting your wedding day timelines to us <3 We feel honored to be a part of events like this:

When building Timeline Genius, Eddie talked to hundreds of wedding planners and studied dozens of sample timelines. The most detailed and extensive one by far was made by Veronica Alexandra of Blue Ivy Events. A Harvard grad, Veronica brings incredible smarts to her schedules.

With events that look like this, we are lucky to have Veronica on our team:

photo credit: Kerry Brett Lifestyle Portraits

Even luckier, Veronica is going to be our source of Wednesday Wedding Wisdom for the next few weeks. Our first question for Veronica: What is the mark of a great timeline?

From Veronica:

The fact is, every wedding has different circumstances, complex enough to have a tailored wedding timeline for each wedding, the same way every lock combination has its own code. Even if you planned a wedding at the same venue every week, each wedding timeline would come out differently.

However, every wedding timeline should have the same key elements in mind. A great timeline is a blend of attention to detail, clean formatting and logic, and customized communication.

Attention To Detail
Every line-item noted in a timeline has a specific goal behind it (or it wouldn’t have been written down!). So the timeline creator has to capture every task associated with every goal noted, in order to truly establish an optimized, “bullet-proof” timeline. For example, every cake either has a cake topper, flowers, or nothing on top of it: that point needs to be established, as well as who is providing the cake topper/flowers? Who is placing them? In what location and at what time?

Clean Formatting
In addition to the details, all timelines should be formatted in a harmonized fashion. Making a document that is easy to read, follow, and execute on, requires major focus from the planner. Aligning items that occur at the same time, shifting things when they need to be changed, and fitting together the multiple moving pieces of a complex day are all challenges that a wedding planner must address.

Customized Communication
The communication of both of these main pieces needs to be easy to follow for grandma, dad, the cake delivery guy and everyone else involved. Each timeline should be customized to speak to every type of participating group.

Timeline Genius makes all of these tasks easier: it asks targeted questions to gather all of the little details, it makes formatting clear and easy to read, and it makes creating customized schedules for each party involved as quick as a click. It relieves the large brain power it takes from us planners, making sure the infrastructure behind each wedding’s key elements are captured as much as humanly (or geniusly!) possible.

***

Thanks for the tips Veronica! Next week, we’ll be asking her about rookie mistakes new planners make on timelines. Until next time!

Hey there event planning friends! Today we are so excited to shine a spotlight on some seriously talented timeline geniuses: Bridal Bliss.

photo credit: Ben Pigao Photography

Is that tablescape not just oozing with style? Bridal Bliss offers full-service wedding planning, partial planning, day of wedding coordination and special event planning in the Portland and Seattle areas. Their goal is to make wedding planning a fun and low-stress experience.

photo credit: Jessica Watson Photography

From Bridal Bliss:

Our staff is made up of experienced and professional consultants who will help create memorable, stylish, and elegant weddings and special events for our clients. Through our experience in the industry, we have established extensive vendor relationships that enable us to produce top rate events in every aspect. We listen to our clients’ needs and ideas, offer creative suggestions and bring their dream weddings to life. By doing this, our clients are able to sit back and enjoy their flawless events knowing that all details are being carefully looked after.

We must agree, their events look pretty flawless:

photo credit: Amanda K Photography

On Timeline Genius:

Bridal Bliss partnered with Timeline Genius in 2015 as we were looking for a company to help streamline the timeline process for our team of coordinators. Timeline Genius has allowed for our team to be more efficient and thorough with our timelines. They have given Bridal Bliss the ability to create custom timelines while keeping the same format, making sure no detail is missed!

What an honor it is for us to help planners do the complex, beautiful, important work that they do! Let’s just enjoy a few more Bridal Bliss details before we wish you a happy and successful day:

All of our users are Timeline Geniuses, and inspire us with the work they do. Today we’d like to share Corinne Farinola’s STX Weddings.

With more than eight years of experience coordinating weddings and events, Corinne specializes in creating and coordinating her client’s dream destination weddings. Offering full-service, custom wedding planning on the beautiful island of St. Croix US Virgin Islands, Corinne caters to her clients every need.

Corinne shared this stunning destination wedding on the gorgeous St. Croix US Virgin Islands with us.

No passports needed.

On using Timeline Genius, Corinne says, “I’m a BIG fan of using Timeline Genius. It makes the arduous task of creating a detailed timeline an effortless one. ” Her work is a perfect example of why we do what we do: so that talented planners like Corinne can have access to tools that make their complex jobs a little easier.

Whoops! Did the end of the year catch you with no party in place? Don’t despair – you still have time!

To have a great New Year’s Party, you just need 3 things:

FOODWhether you decide to serve a full dinner or heavy late-night hors d’oeuvres, good food is always a must for a good time. Luckily you don’t have to spend all your time in the kitchen to make this happen. We suggest catering from a trusted source. Whole Foods for example has full holiday meals for 8 guests, or a variety of fun and delicious finger foods to pass. If you’re feeling really last minute and live in 1 of 12 lucky cities, you can utilize the new UberEATS app and have delicious food appear within minutes!

FUN
Having a few activities in place not only delights and entertains guests, it also makes your party seem perfectly planned 😉 A photo backdrop is always popular. You can create one as easily as hanging your favorite colorful fabric on the wall, or if you have more time, try one of these creative DIY Backdrops.

courtesy of bridesmagazine.co.uk

FRIENDLY ATMOSPHERETo create a warm, welcoming atmosphere, you need to engage all the senses. Engage the eyes with a pop of recurring color by making a run to the craft store and picking up a few props in your chosen color scheme. For olfactory stimulation, light one of these wintery-scented candles. For touch, make sure all of your softest cushions and throws are out for cozying up. And what is a party without music? If you don’t have time to make your own playlist, Spotify and Pandora have plenty waiting for you! Hand your guests a mulled cider when they enter to delight their taste buds, and your party is underway.

This one’s for you to subtly send to your friends and loved-ones, in case they’re wondering what kind of gift will melt your heart this winter 😃

Personalized Clipboard

It’s rare to spot a planner without her clipboard. It serves as a holder of precious documents, a hard surface to sign contracts on, and a flat surface to balance coffee cups on. With all the usage these trusty companions get, it’s always nice to receive new ones. We found these cute customizable clipboards for the planner in your life at Claire Bella:

Classy Tape Measure

Like Mary Poppins, a planner’s tape measure will show her to be “practically perfect in every way“. It also will help grab quick dimensions of anything from windows to aisle width. We found this rosewood tape measure at Anthropologie:

3. Fancy Fanny Pack

A wedding planner would be lost without her emergency kit! The contents of one’s kit vary by planner, but everything must fit inside one easy-to-access carrier. And now one needn’t sacrifice fashion for a useful fanny! Make the coolest fashion statement in the house with this find from Etsy: